Who was the demon possessing Regan in "The Exorcist"?
I finished reading the book, and after that I watched the movie. I really have no imagination, so help me out here? Who was the demon possessing the girl in this? It calls itself The Devil, then later in the book it says it’s “a devil”. The demon offers no information at all about who he is.
I was thinking Pazuzu, as it’s the limestone statue representing said demon found in Northern Iraq in the opening, and that name is mentioned once more in the book and movie, but it is never directly attributed to the demon possessing Regan. All the relations in the book don’t help clear stuff up either, such as the old priest having battled the very same demon before. He never actually calls him “Pazuzu”.
So far as I know Pazuzu isn’t even from Christian lore. Not that this changes anything…so who was the demon in the story?
Incidentally as a second question, in the beginning of this story a church gets desecrated, it is allusioned to as a“black mass” by the characters in the book. Now I guess I wasn’t paying attention but…they never go back to this in the story. We never figure out who took a shit in the church or who drew dicks all over the statues. It wasn’t Regan, wasn’t Dennings…so who messed up the church and why is this never spoken of again? Was it just an excuse to read almost four pages attributed to what goes on in a black mass? (don’t get me wrong, it was awesome)
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yeah I never liked this movie because it always seemed like a ploy to get people to go to Church, where basically anything that isn’t Christian (atheism/secularism defined by the doctors, paganism defined by Pazuzu) is bad. So who were the demons? Conceptually, anything not related to Christianity.
But to fully answer your question, I was thinking either a) Pazuzu is one of the devil’s minions ala Paradise Lost or b) since Pazuzu is so obscure in the western world, we might as well call him the devil. As for who desecrated the church, people are saying it’s Reagan, which makes sense because she’s the one closest to Pazuzu/The Devil. I’m curious about why you say otherwise.
This is one of the many reasons why this movie annoys me
I didn’t think it was her because she’s always at home, although I do admit that at the times these things happened, she wasn’t “fully possessed” yet, therefore not strapped to her bed like she is for most of this. I guess she easily could have crawled out the window at night or something, since the demon endows her with super strength and speed.
Just didn’t seem legit as everything in the book seems to link the black mass to complete randomness. I know the demon wanted both priests so I guess it’s convenient that it settled close to the Jesuit place? Just doesn’t add up though, Regan doing this, even if it’s logical. If it was a real criminal organization they would have taken stool samples and would know that it belonged to a kid. Ugh wtf am I thinking about.
Pazuzu represents the south west wind in the religious beliefs of Mesopotamia and predates Christianity by at least 800 years. It brought famine and plagues of locusts to the area now known as Iraq. Although a demon, Pazuzu was a source of protection and you can see it represented here
I think the double wings resemble those of a locust.
According to Wikipedia, In Exorcist II: The Heretic, Pazuzu is named as the demon.
Aye, saw it just recently. Man that was…different. It definitely is Pazuzu and guy likes him some locusts.
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